social events in buenos aires

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Bondiola is a particular cut of pork, unique in its dimensions and presentation, that can be found at any typical restaurant in Buenos Aires. Taken from the shoulder and neck, its nearest North American equivalent would be the Boston Butt, but porteños usually don’t cook it as an entire roast like the yanquis. You can find bondiola in fiambre (lunchmeat) form or ready for the asador at your local carniceria.

The sandwich de bondiola, with luscious, thick slices of pork and salsa criolla or chimichurri or even barbacoa (if your tastes lie that way) is one of the flavors you can’t miss when you come to Buenos Aires. Head down to Costanera Sur in Puerto Madero to sample this reasonably priced delicacy made by a professional. With an array of fresh veggies and salsas to choose from, you can’t go wrong. Order it completo if you want them to add ham, cheese and a fried egg on top of all that delicious pork. Your vegetarian friends can order a provoleta sandwich if they are unfortunate enough to be trying to eat in BA.

For the gourmet experience, try the bondiola rellena at your favorite BA steakhouse. Imagine tender, exquisite pork stuffed with plums, mushrooms, or even bacon if you are a glutton for porkishment. The bondiola mechada con panceta at La Cabrera comes highly recommended, if not a little pricy. No matter how you slice it, bondiola is a savory delight you can’t pass up when you visit Buenos Aires.

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Eating in BA when bringing dollars into the country can be very affordable. The city is full of quality eating but at first glance can seem limited to steak houses (parillas) and pizza joints. With a city the size of BA every taste is catered to, but it is certainly true that the population’s Italian heritage means a lot of pizza, pasta and pastries. On just about any street corner you will find family run restaurants serving typically heavy, Italian inspired food.

A veggie nightmare…

Before coming to Argentina I was under the impression that it would be eating steak for lunch and dinner. My wife (Argentine) had also made a big deal of the quality of meat available, and rightly so. We holidayed in Mina Calvero and the butcher there would prepare our cut of meat straight from the beast. It was great to see and the quality was incredible, a far stretch from what we get back in the UK. Unfortunately with the high inflation the country is experiencing, steak twice a day isn’t an option for everyone.

For those who are staying long term, supermarket shopping will quickly become the most cost effective option. Disco, Jumbo and Carrefour are the major players, all with similar pricing. What becomes evident, when coming from the UK, is the lack of anything Asian or Indian. You can also still spend a fortune on goods that are normally very cheap, if you are not careful.
They also don’t seem to have a discounted or “buy one get one free” culture, or a dedicated cheap brand like we have back home. Instead they have a discount coupon policy and let you pay your weekly shops over the course of a month. A lot of what is sold in the supermarkets is produced in Argentina and again works out to be the most cost effective way to feed yourself, as what they do import can be way over-priced and usually not of a quality worth justifying.

Empanadas…Like Cornish pasties.

Those on a budget will find the abundance of fruit and veg shops around the city the best way to eat cheap. They are usually better value compared to the supermarkets and a great way to support the local-man. Equally bakeries can be a cheap way to eat and of great quality.

Mmmm…gelato!

Lastly, those with a sweet tooth will not fail to miss the vast amount of ice cream parlors (heladerias) around the city. The ice cream is great here, just make sure you like chocolate and Dulce de Leche flavours…

Which brings us to Dulce de Leche. Like some best kept culinary secret, it’s the one Argentine product that should be readily available worldwide, but isn’t. A milk based caramel that the Argentines use in just about everything sweet, it’s perfect. It’s good, promise.

Argentina is a beautiful country and has so many things to see! If you have some time outside of your classes at lvstudio, go and travel around Argentina! Whether it’s Salta, Jujuy, Cordoba, and Iguazu in the North or El Calafate, Bariloche, and Ushuaia in the South, it’s all worth seeing! You can travel through Argentina two ways: by bus or by plane.

Do you want to take the bus ?

Argentina has an excellent bus network. Buses here are surprisingly comfortable. The providers offer three different services depending on the number of stops and type of seats: Regular, Semi-cama (semi-bed), and Cama (bed), with Cama being similar to an airline’s business class. This last one also includes meals, while the others don’t serve food unless you buy it yourself in advance. If you have a long way to go, overnight buses are the way to go. They save you a night’s accommodations and keep the daylight hours for pleasure. Hundreds of bus companies serve the different regions with different classes. Check your destination on www.plataforma10.com and compare the prices of the different companies!

Or do you prefer taking a plane?

Travel by air is becoming more popular due to the size of the country. Every province in Argentina has its own airport. Flying with certain airlines can be financially comparable or even cheaper than covering the same distance by bus. Demand is heavy and flights, especially to Patagonian destinations in summer, are often booked well in advance. So if you know your dates and destination, take a look at http://www.despegar.com.ar/and compare the different companies.

Still have questions? Ask in lvstudio at the front desk and we will be happy to help you!

I started travelling late in 2009 and like a lot of Englishmen I had had very little experience with foreign languages, especially when compared to other Europeans. There isn’t an emphasis on learning languages in the UK like in other countries. Also, I would be lying if I said I didn´t have a slightly bullish attitude to foreign languages, in that I expected everyone else to speak enough English for me to get by. Travelling throughout India I found communication to be a mixed bag. Most people spoke good English in the southern states (it is the official language) but up north it was either very broken or nonexistent. Getting about wasn’t too hard but it was a shame that due to my lack of Hindi I couldn’t form proper friendships with a lot of the great Indians I met.

Last March my wife and I holidayed in Japan and it was the first time I came across such a definitive language barrier. The Japanese were wonderfully polite and you could see that they wanted to help when we asked or enquired, but such distinct and different cultures and languages really did stop any true connection through speaking to one another. As you can imagine there was plenty of body language and pointing from our end and plenty of awkward, polite smiles and bowing from theirs!

An impression I got from experiencing India and Japan, to some degree, was that they didn’t expect foreign travelers to understand their languages. That didn’t make it any easier getting around, but there was an: “Ok, so I can’t understand you, you can’t understand me, let’s work this out the best we can” attitude that helped.

Coming to Argentina has been by far the biggest eye opener in the language stakes. My wife is Argentine but we never talk in Spanish and so I came to Argentina with very little Spanish vocabulary. I have been fortunate because my wife’s family all speak English well enough, but of course tend to talk Spanish when we are together socially. My bullish attitude of expecting everyone to speak English around me has been well and truly shot down!

I have so far struggled to pick up Spanish which has made it difficult at times. I get the impression that there is an expectation to know Spanish when you want to engage with Argentines (and rightly so!) and so understanding conversational Spanish is all the more important.

What I’ve learnt when on the road is that if you want to travel and just do the tourist traps then a limited understanding of that country’s language will get you by, just barely. But, just doing the tourist traps means that you are missing a big part of travelling. Going off the beaten track is how to experience a country’s true culture and people, and this requires you to put effort into learning their language.

Pirates have nasty attitudes, this is frequently the result of wearing their pants too tight.

What’s wrong with this sentence? Most style manuals agree that there is a problem here. When two independent clauses are connected with a comma without a conjunction, a comma splice is the result. An independent clause is a clause that can stand alone as a sentence. There are several ways to resolve this situation. The easiest way to fix the problem is to separate the two clauses into two sentences.

Pirates have nasty attitudes. This is frequently the result of wearing their pants too tight.

Another way to resolve this problem would be to combine the two clauses with a conjunction such as or, but, or and. The addition of the conjunction makes one of the clauses dependent on the other.

Pirates have nasty attitudes, but this is frequently the result of wearing their pants too tight.

A third way to fix the problem is to use a semicolon. This is only possible if the clauses are independent. Semicolons are frequently misused so be careful with them.

Pirates have nasty attitudes; this is frequently the result of wearing their pants too tight.

For a clear and succinct description of how to use a semicolon, visit The Oatmeal

As iconic as the face of Carlos Gardel, the stylized artistic style of fileteado can be seen throughout Buenos Aires adorning storefronts, buses, taxis and just about anything else that porteños care about. The curled flowers, loops and hand painted swirls that began as a simple decoration for produce carts developed over the years into a way of distinguishing the myriad of buses (colectivos) from their competitors. Now the style is recognized as a unique and disctinctive art form of the city. From plumber’s shops to Milongas, the characteristic flowers, cornucopias, and vivid colors are more than just a means of filling the free space on signs; they are an art form as distinctive as Buenos Aires itself.

Excellent examples of fileteado can be found when walking around La Boca or outside the Carlos Gardel museum in Abasto. It is not necessary, however, to make a special trip. Just about everywhere you go in the city, you can see hand painted fileteado signs and walls used for advertisements or simply for decoration.

There are even tours that will take you around the city to see the best examples of this unique art form. Or, if you are feeling creative, you can even take a class from a master of fileteado. Wherever you are in the city, there is a good chance that you can find a beautiful example of this distinctive art within walking distance.

Whether you just came to Buenos Aires for a short vacation or whether your visit to Buenos Aires is part of a longer journey, it is definitely a good place to go shopping and get your money’s worth. If you just arrived in Buenos Aires, you are probably spending some time in the neighborhood of Palermo. Just walking around this neighborhood you are likely to encounter loads of stores that offer everything from jewelry to jeans. If you happen to be there during the weekend, make sure to check out Plaza Serrano where every weekend the streets turn into a small, open air shopping mall. Moreover, all the bars that at night allow you to enjoy nicely chilled Quilmes convert into small markets during the day. You can find clothes and jewelry here that will definitely be cheaper than in a normal brand store. If you are in Buenos Aires a bit longer, this is perhaps not the place you want to go. So now you are asking yourself, “Where then should I go shopping?” Ask in any hotel or hostel and most likely they will tell you to try your luck on Florida Street. Which is very nice to see and is the closest that you will find to a “European” style shopping street. The street is closed for traffic and so you can easily shop at your own pace and enjoy looking at whatever it is you are looking for. However, that being said, it is worth considering just sticking to looking at things and not buying it there. It won’t be a surprise that to find the best possible shopping for the best price, go where the locals go. In this category there are two options that you might want to consider, depending on how much you want to buy and how long you are staying in Buenos Aires. The easiest option would be to go to Avenida Cabildo. This street is easily accessible from Subte linea D and takes you right from Plaza Italia or Palermo to the heart of the Porteno’s shopping street. Leave the Subte at station Juramento and you will find yourself surrounded by stores and the more familiar food chains. You will also notice that there won’t be as many tourists hanging around there, although that’s definitely not the only reason to go.
In case you are staying for a bit longer, maybe to learn some Spanish before starting your travels throughout South America, there is one other place that might be worth visiting. The name is La Avellaneda and that is where you will find good quality clothes for an incredibly low price. It is easily accessible since you can take the Metrobus that leaves from Palermo station and which will take you just a couple of blocks away from where you’ll need to be. The only catch is that to get a cheap price in general you will have to buy at least a couple of items in the same store. But no worries, in general you just have to buy 3 articles of clothing in the same store, which is often still cheaper then buying just 1 article on Florida Street.
So if you are not afraid to explore a little bit and are looking to buy good quality clothing for traveling, or if you are just looking for something to take back home, Buenos Aires will definitely serve you well.

We welcome 2012 with a new look for LVSTUDIO’s website. We welcome all of your comments and notes!
New promos are coming up for the new year! As always, we look forward to seeing you in one of our courses and social events… Have you seen the new FRIDAY CONVERSATION NIGHT?? 😉 And our new Portuguese courses?